The Cooper-Hofstadter Paradigm
by MoonOfPluto
Summary: Events lead to both Sheldon's and Leonard's mothers coming over for Christmas- or in Sheldon's terms, Saturnalia revamped. With Penny's gift sitting under the tree and Sheldon's mother sitting in his spot, how will the esteemed theoretical physicist cope?
1. Chapter 1

The Cooper-Hofstadter Paradigm

Sheldon paced around the room anxiously, the phone clutched to his ear. "Yes mother. No mother, I can't leave my research. Yes, it's more important than my own mother. No mother, I don't need you to pray for my soul. No, stop, stop." Sheldon sighed at the irritating whines of his mother on the phone. He couldn't come down to Texas for Christmas, he was at a very important stage in his dark matter research. Of course, mother couldn't seem to understand that physics needed him more than she did.

"Mother, if you must see me this Saturnalia then you'll have to come to me." Why did his mother even celebrate the revamped version of Saturnalia anyway? How could she believe that a woman created a child with no male DNA? Humanity frustrated him sometimes, why did people feel the need to come and disturb his research and try to guilt trip him into being glad about it?

He wished that he had laser vision as he gave the phone a death glare as his mother started to squawk about how paganism was just satanism repackaged. "OK mother?" he interrupted her speech on the evil temptations of Lucifer getting to him. "So will you be coming down for Christmas?"

Internally, he sighed at her answer of yes. Now why couldn't he have been born into Leonard's family? There his genius would have been appreciated and nurtured. He would have been able to get CAT scans whenever he wanted and Leonard's mother wouldn't have hit him with a bible when he didn't eat his Brussels sprouts.

"OK. Goodbye mother. I will see you on the 24th of December." He hung up and paced around for a few minutes before sinking down into his spot. That spot on the couch never failed to relax him, and the radiator was very well placed. He felt sorry for Leonard sitting in the chair perpendicular to his spot as he would be much too close to the radiator and sweat. It would also be too close to a window in summer and he would have to crane his neck to see the TV properly.

Leonard was already sitting down. "What's wrong, Sheldon?" he asked. "You look down."

"My mother's coming over on Saturday," Sheldon said, feeling that it needed no further explanation.

"You don't give your mother as much love as she deserves," Leonard protested. "She is warm and kind and cares about you. You know what happened at my house at Christmas. I'm the one who has something to be sad about, my mother is coming on the 23rd."

"Really?" Sheldon asked. All traces of his prior exasperation had vanished and his face lit up like a kid in a candy shop. Or an odd kid at the Hadron Collider, Leonard thought would suit Sheldon better. "Your mother is coming for Saturnalia? That's wonderful news, I wonder if she will bring the PowerPoint about sex for reproduction only this time. Oh I do hope so."

"Yep," Leonard said sadly. "Maybe she can show you some of the papers we wrote about the holidays in my childhood."

"Oh, I hope she will. Do you think she might be able to get me another brain scan? I love the way my brain looks in pictures. Minus my pre-frontal cortex of course. That's always been too small for my liking." Perhaps Sheldon's mother would be able to tell Leonard about the time she got him tested for insanity, Leonard thought. He had always wanted to know how the doctor decided that Sheldon was not insane. It puzzled him.

"So why is your mother visiting?" Sheldon asked. "It can't be because she's proud of your research, she has two other children in the top of their fields doing original research. What you're doing is a rehash of the experiments done by a group of Swiss scientists." Leonard was used to the way that Sheldon would always bring that up, but it still got under his skin. Especially after Sheldon taught Penny to say that.

"She's attending a conference here in Pasadena and informed me that she would be visiting at Christmas to see what sloppy habits I've got into since last time she saw me," Leonard replied. Sheldon seemed satisfied with the answer. Often Leonard wondered if he should have made friends with someone who actually had emotions, not just a mind for facts.

Their conversation was interrupted by Penny coming into the room. Penny had two gifts under her arm, wrapped in shiny, gold wrapping paper. Leonard had to resist collapsing in frustration, remembering what happened last time Sheldon had been given a gift. Their trip to the body shop and Sheldon's purchase of half the store was not an event he wanted to repeat.

Sheldon seemed spooked by the gold-wrapped packages in Penny's arms. "Penny," Sheldon protested. "You know what trouble gift-giving creates for me. Those presents had better not be for me." Leonard sighed. Why did he have to be the roommate of a crazy person?

"I know," Penny said. "But I saw this in the store and I just couldn't resist buying it for you." Leonard closed his eyes and started breathing slowly. Could Penny have done anything worse? Did she not remember Sheldon's reaction to finding a gift that he loved last year?

"Ah, Penny," Sheldon said in irritation. "That's even worse. Your statement implied that this gift will be something that I will love. Do you know what that means?" Penny shook her head unsurely. "That means that I will have to find a gift of equal value to you." Sheldon paused. "And that means that I will have to pay attention to what you like."

"I like shoes," Penny offered.

"No, no, no," Sheldon said. "I don't know your shoe size, I don't know what sort of shoes you like. I don't know the price range of your gift and that would spoil the surprise somewhat to know. I don't know if your gift has some sort of emotional value. And also- shoe shopping. I'm not female."

"Shoe shopping isn't only for girls. Men wear shoes too," Penny pointed out.

"Yes, but I shoe shop for necessity, not for enjoyment. And I don't learn the difference between pumps, kitten-heels and converse. And I do it on the Internet," Sheldon responded. "And under no circumstances do I call my shoes cute."

Penny sighed. "Look, Sheldon. I really don't mind what you get me."

"Well, I mind," Sheldon said, confused. "If I get you an insufficient gift then I will be labeled as a freeloader by my friendship group."

"Better than being labeled as insane," Leonard muttered.

"I'm not insane. My mother had me tested," Sheldon stated. "Multiple times," he muttered under his breath. Sheldon had rather enjoyed terrifying the firmly Christian doctors his mother had hired for him. They had always said that he wasn't insane, he just needed to be prayed for. Obviously they were unaware of the experiments done to investigate the success of prayer by having a large number of patients with heart disease prayed for and a large number not. The ones not prayed for recovered faster. Of course when he had told them that they just said he was under the influence of Satan and prayed for him more.

"Of course you're not insane honey," Penny said sarcastically. "It's totally normal to break into people's houses at night and clean, or to arrange cereals by fibre content. Or.."

"Alright, alright," Sheldon said. "Those were the actions that any sane man would take to avoid being near to a swirling vortex of entropy that threatens to suck one in." Sheldon shuddered at the memory of seeing Penny's apartment before his organisational plan. It still wasn't as neat as he would have liked it, but at least he could sleep peacefully now.

A knock on the door announced Howard and Raj's entrance with pizza. Sheldon immediately got up to quiz them on the contents of the food that he would be eating this evening. "Thin base, exactly five millimetres thick?" Howard nodded. "Made with butter, not margarine?" Another nod. "Cheese-free?"

"Look, I told the pizza man what you wanted," Howard snapped. "Five millimetre base, butter not margarine, cheese free, fresh tomato sauce, and bacon pieces, not pepperoni. Happy?" Really, Sheldon was more fussy than his mother. Why did he always attract the crazies? First his mother, then Raj, then Sheldon.

"Not overly. My mother is coming for Christmas and Penny got me a present." Sheldon sunk back down into his spot again, filing away his other problems to the family and female friends sections of his brain respectively. Organising his mind like this was natural to him because of his eidetic memory, he couldn't understand how others didn't.

Sheldon took a bite out of his pizza, savouring the honed taste in his mouth, making a small noise of appreciation as he did so. Now why didn't others understand the need for perfection? Another of humanity's many failings, the ability to settle for the mediocre and make the mediocre the expected. He expected nothing less than perfection in everything he did.

"There's a nice new pasta place in town," Raj (speaking through Howard) started a conversation. Sheldon sighed internally. Just why did humans think that empty small talk was better than silence? It frustrated him to no end. However, explaining this to the others would be ineffective and only create more conversation, so the logical thing to do would be listen and at the end offer a facial expression to suggest that Raj had gone insane.

"He had lunch there today," Raj continued via Howard again. "Spaghetti al arrabiata, it was really nice. The atmosphere was good too, they had soft lighting and candles at every table to create a romantic atmosphere. It was lovely." Now was the time for the facial expression that suggested that Raj had gone insane, Sheldon thought. Even more cause for it than he had anticipated.

Sheldon's eyes widened and his mouth was set in a straight line. "Are you telling me that you ate Italian food at lunch today?" Sheldon asked. "That's two Italian meals in one day. And are you suggesting that I dine somewhere new? Why would I dine somewhere new when I have spent months perfecting my current diet?"

Raj shook his head and started whispering quickly to Howard again. "Raj says that you might if your brain suddenly becomes normal." Sheldon's glare upped a notch and Raj shrugged. "But seeing as there is virtually no chance whatsoever that that will happen then I don't think that's a good reason," Howard said.

"So guys, what are your plans for Christmas?" asked Penny, changing the subject. "I know that Sheldon's mother is coming, what else?"

"My mother is coming too," Leonard told the blonde. "Sheldon'll probably spend more time with my mother than with his own. Birds of a feather flock together. The crazies." Sheldon decided not to bother that he was certified not-crazy. If it hadn't sunk in the first ten times, chance were it wouldn't now.

Penny winced. She had not too pleasant memories of Leonard's mother from the last time she visited. The psychoanalysis that had made her break down in tears on the way up and down the stairs stuck out particularly in her memories of the woman. "Probably. I wonder if she'll take him out for another brain scan."

"I hope so," Sheldon said, in such a tone that none of them could doubt it. Penny hoped so too. The more time that Mrs Hofstadter spent out with Sheldon, the less time she would be spending in the apartment block with Penny. And Penny wasn't sure that she would cope with the Hofstadter Christmas idea of writing papers about the influence of holiday occasions throughout the ages and peer-marking them.

"Well I'm sure she will get you a lovely present," Penny said, not really sure how to respond to Sheldon's desire for a brain scan. Then again, remembering his reaction to her gift, it probably wasn't the correct reaction. She sighed internally as Sheldon opened his mouth, probably to explain why gift-giving was a waste of time (again).

"Mrs Hofstadter is a very intelligent woman," Sheldon started. "She has much better things to do than to go out and buy gifts for Saturnalia and even if she didn't, she wouldn't desire to anyway. I'm sure that I've already explained to you why the whole premise of gift giving is ludicrous." Penny nodded hurriedly. She didn't want to have that lecture again. "I really wish it wasn't the accepted social convention," Sheldon finished.

"And the Christmas spirit is with us all already," Leonard said sarcastically.

xXx-X-xXx

That's the first chapter of my big bang theory fan fiction. I've always wondered what it would be like for Leonard and Sheldon's mothers to meet and compare parenting methods. Hopefully they'll do one of these in season 7. Anyway, if you liked/disliked/just have something to say about this chapter, please leave a review telling me.

-MoonOfPluto


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Sheldon, Leonard, Raj and Howard were in a baking shop in Pasadena town. They had originally gone to the body shop again, but Sheldon had pointed out that he had already bought Penny many gifts from the body shop. As he was sure that Penny would not give him another napkin with the DNA of Leonard Nimoy on it, it would be bad form for him to get her another coconut bath set.

So that brought the group to the baking shop, after Howard's insistence that all girls liked baking. Personally, Sheldon had his doubts, but he was less experienced in these matters than the others. All he knew was the most obvious social etiquettes and it seemed that Howard payed a lot of attention to the sort of things that girls liked. Not that it seemed to be getting him anywhere. But Howard was Sheldon's only hope as the only girl that wanted to be with Leonard was Joyce Kim, a North Korean spy and Raj couldn't even talk to women, let alone select appropriate holiday gifts.

The shop was filled with things which Sheldon had little knowledge of. What, for example, did they mean by ultra-violet food colouring? Did they mean that they would make the cakes invisible to the human eye? Ultra-violet light was out of the visible light spectrum, and therefore should not be classified as food colouring. It had a rather uncomfortable effect on him.

"Howard, how do you know that this is a good idea?" Sheldon asked. "Judging by the amount that Penny cooks and the quality of her food that I have tasted, Penny does not enjoy baking or any type of cooking for that matter. To have a good gift, wouldn't it be better to pick something that she has shown interest in? Perhaps some of those sickening romantic movies."

"Sheldon," Howard said irritably. "She works in the cheesecake factory, of course she can bake."

"She works as a waitress, not a chef," Sheldon pointed out. "And she has admitted herself that she is bad at her job there. And she puts much more effort into her acting career," Sheldon puts air quotes around the acting career, "than into the job that is actually getting her money and is actually a job."

"Sheldon, you aren't going to do what you did last year are you?" Leonard asked wearily. He remembered last year when Sheldon had bought nearly every product in the body shop for Penny and would pick the gifts that matched her own and take the rest back. Why couldn't the physicist have been normal and just buy her a bottle of nice wine?

"Well of course I am," Sheldon said. "How am I supposed to judge the quality of the gift when I have little or no data to go by? I highly doubt Penny will give me something as brilliant as she gave me last year. So my plan of buying a set of gifts from small to massive and selecting the appropriate one should work."

Leonard sighed. "I'm just going to get her a box of chocolates and some wine. Maybe a voucher to a shoe shop or some cash." Sheldon glared at his roommate. How could he be so casual about such an important social obligation? What would he do if Penny only gave him something little or gave him something huge? He would look like a bad friend. Sheldon wasn't going to fall into the trap of this particular social convention.

"Ah," Sheldon said. "Here we are. Gift boxes and recipe books for friends. Penny is a friend." He examined the sets. They seemed to fit nicely into small, medium, large and your guide to everything baking. The small set had a cookies recipe books, a few different types of chocolate chips and flavourings and some festive shapes of cookie cutters.

Medium had recipes for brownies, scones and various types of biscuits and a book on how to make and decorate cupcakes. It had a fondant icing set and some pretty cupcake cases. Large had cupcakes, cookies and chocolates books with various cutters and cases and packaging for said baked goods. Guide to everything baking pretty much amalgamated these.

"I think these are what I'm looking for. They should cover any range of gifts that Penny may have misguidedly bought me," Sheldon said in relief. Really, keeping inside social convention was so difficult. Why did he have to get her anything at all? He hadn't wanted a gift, she went behind his back and bought one. Surely he should be allowed to get her something that she didn't want as well.

Sheldon walked up to the counter of the baking shop. "Hello, I'd like to buy these please," he said to the woman behind the counter. She looked down at the sets in curiosity.

"You don't look like the type of guy who bakes," she informed him.

"Oh, I'm not," Sheldon informed her. "I have much better things to do in my spare time, such as ponder the existence of the universe. I wouldn't dream of wasting my time baking. No, these are gifts for a friend."

"Lucky friend," the woman said, scanning the gifts.

"Not really," Sheldon said. "She's a waitress at the cheesecake factory. If she was lucky then she would have had the intelligence not to try to be a movie star with the backup plan of TV star." The woman raised her eyebrows at him, and then looked at Raj, Howard and Leonard.

"Is he.. crazy?" she asked the guys.

"I'm not insane. My mother had me tested," Sheldon responded.

"In other words, yes," Howard said.

Sheldon walked out of the store with two large bags of baking goods. His Penny-present conundrum had been solved and now he could go back to matters that were actually deserving of his attention, such as buying the correct ingredients for Mrs Hofstader's tea. He could well relate to her problems with the tea that Leonard made.

xXx-X-xXx

Mary Cooper hurried around her house, tweaking the decorations and waiting for Joshua Cooper to arrive. Her daughter Missy was already at home and she needed to tell Josh about the good news that Sheldon had brought her. Of course, he had seemed a bit reluctant to invite her, but that was just her Shelly.

He never had liked people visiting him or spending time with his family. Hopefully the holy spirit would enter his heart this Christmas and make him into a nice, normal man. A man who would repent for the sin of messing with God's creations to make luminous fish

lamps.

"Missy! Do you have Sheldon's present?" she called up the stairs to her daughter. There were scuffling noises upstairs and she heard a shout telling her that yes, Missy did have Sheldon's present. Mary knew that would like this one, it seemed right up his street. Assuming her Shelly hadn't changed since the last time she saw him, but with Sheldon, change was unlikely.

A knock on the door snapped her out of her thoughts. "That must be Josh!" she called to Missy. Missy jumped down the stairs enthusiastically and landed next to Mary. Missy remembered Josh clearly. He hadn't come to visit for a long time, but he was the complete opposite to her other brother.

Now why was Missy the only normal one of her siblings. Sheldon was just freakishly smart and OCD and odd, and Josh was one of the stupidest people that she had ever met. She had heard rumours that he was on drugs for a while, but she didn't believe them. No matter how idiotic he was, she didn't think that he would harm himself like that. She would have to ask to be sure though.

Mary Cooper opened the door to see her other, ordinary son. She loved Sheldon of course, but she much preferred raising Josh as a child to raising Sheldon. He may not have been the smartest kid around, but at least he didn't try to build a nuclear reactor in their garden shed.

Josh entered the house. He had really filled out since the last time that Mary saw him. Josh was a tall man, around as tall as Sheldon, with bulging muscles. He had a dragon tattoo down one of his arms and was clean shaven. Mary wrapped her arms around him in a hug and he hugged back.

It always felt good to be appreciated as a mother like that. Sheldon had only hugged her twice before, once when she bought a set of rather powerful lasers for his birthday and once when she agreed to take him out to a comic book convention. His hugs always felt like hugging some sort of spider because of his spindly limbs and awkward hugging style. They were, however, more meaningful than most people's hugs. When Sheldon hugged her, she knew that she had done something to make him really happy.

"Hi mum," Josh said. "Hello Missy." He gave Missy a short hug too, short because Missy pushed him away. Oh yeah, he remembered. Missy was like Sheldon in that she didn't really like the feeling of hugs all that much. "So what are we going to do this Christmas?" he asked. "Did you get Sheldon to agree to leave his work for a few days and come and see his family?" he asked hopefully. Meeting with Sheldon was always interesting.

"No, but Sheldon offered that we come over to see him," Mary said happily. "I've booked a few rooms at a hotel in Pasadena and we can meet Shelly in his apartment for Christmas. I've already bought him a present, I think he'll like it a lot." Josh grinned. It was probably something to do with science or those comics that Shelly always used to collect.

"OK," he said. "Has Shelly finally snapped out of his 'presents are of the devil' phase?" Josh asked. He remembered the last time that he saw Sheldon for Christmas, he had bought his brother a present and Sheldon became very flustered because he hadn't expected one. He was then subject to a rant about the exchange of money until one of them died slightly the richer.

"I don't know," Mary said. "But that was four years ago, and I'm sure he'd make an exception for his family," she said. "And I'm sure that he won't mind after he sees what I have got him." Josh was starting to wonder what the present from Missy and his mum was to make them so sure that Sheldon would accept it.

But it had always been Mary's rule that presents should only be known by the people who bought them until Christmas day and he knew that Mary had a stubborn streak. She wouldn't change any of the traditional family rules. Maybe that was where Sheldon got it from, he thought.

Sheldon's life was very rigid the last time he remembered going up. Sheldon had even told him that he was living like a hippy. Just because he didn't have a specific spot or a dinner timetable. Just because he cared about what was happening in the world at the moment and not about the quant-thing. Some sort of physics that Sheldon was obsessed with.

"I didn't get him anything cause he threw a tantrum about it last time," Josh said. "Something about one of us dying richer, I sort of zoned out through his rant. So is there any news from Sheldon?" he asked.

Mary shrugged. "Something about researching dark matters. I didn't really understand, it better just to leave my little Shelly alone with his physics sometimes. He's an odd boy, but I can't deny that he knows what he's doing in that area." She sighed. "I wish he was as smart emotionally."

"I don't think Sheldon has any emotions to be smart about mother," Josh said grinning.

xXx-X-xXx

So what do you think of chapter 2? I forgot to mention that this story takes place before Bernadette and Amy came in, so the Sheldon friendship group only has him, Raj, Howard, Leonard and Penny now. Sorry, no Shamy or Shenny.

-MoonOfPluto


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